A packet switching network has switching points or nodes (commonly referred to as routers or switches) for transmissions of data among senders and receivers connected to the network. The switching performed by these switching points is in fact the action of passing on packets of data received by a switching point or node to a further node in the network. Such switching actions are the means by which communication data is moved through the packet switching network.
Each router may comprise a switch fabric coupled to a plurality of blades. The switch fabric may be configured to direct the incoming packets of data to particular blades coupled to the switch fabric. Each blade may comprise a processor commonly referred to as a network processor coupled to one or more ports. Each port may be physically connected to another network device, e.g., router. Upon the network processor processing a packet of data, the network processor may index into a table, commonly referred to as a forwarding table, to determine the address of which port to transmit the processed packet. The forwarding table may comprise a plurality of entries where each entry may comprise an address of a particular port. The address indexed may correspond to a particular port connected to another network device. The processed packet may then be transmitted across that port to the connected network device.
Since the processed packets may be transmitted by the network processor across one particular address, the rate at which the processed packets are transmitted is limited to the bandwidth of the connection. That is, since the processed packets may be transmitted by the network processor across one physical port to a particular network device, the rate at which the processed packets are transmitted is limited to the bandwidth of the physical connection between the port and the network device.
If, however, the packets of data were able to be transmitted across multiple physical ports to a particular network device from a particular network processor, then the bandwidth capacity would be increased. That is, if packets of data were able to be transmitted across multiple physical ports to a particular network device by a network processor, then the rate packets of data are transmitted may be increased.
It would therefore be desirable to enable a network processor to transmit packets of data across multiple physical ports to a particular network device instead of one physical port.